My Iron Spine cover/New Zealand writing

Hello again. I feel like it's ages since I've posted, and it has been over a week. I hope you didn't think I'd given up. I'd like to say I've been doing lots of terribly useful and important things in the meantime, but I haven't been doing much writing of any kind. Or much reading for that matter.

One thing I have been doing is working on cover concepts for My Iron Spine. I'm down to two concepts - one a rather cool but possibly too dark photograph, the other involving a little painting of a torso in a corset, seen from the back - constriction/containment etc (painted by moi, on Tuesday night, and I think it's turned out pretty well). I'm going to tinker further with them, and then see what my publisher thinks. I'd better hurry up, because the distributor needs a cover soon. I've been showing various options to people, and mostly they don't agree. There did seem to be a general preference for the two I'm favouring though. When I have something sorted, I'll post it here.

What I was actually planning to write about, though I got slightly sidetracked, was about a post over here on Undulating Ungulate, where Billy asks for advice on what New Zealand literature he might like. It helps of course if you know Billy, but I'd be interested to know what some of your favourite New Zealand writers/books are.

I suggested Billy should read Maurice Gee, especially Plumb; Lloyd Jones, especially Biografi; and Tim Corballis. For Billy, I should have also mentioned Julian Novitz and the stories of Tim Jones.

For myself, I am also a big fan of Katherine Mansfield - I think my fav story is 'Daughters of the Late Colonel', though I'm also very keen on 'At the Bay'. (My first, and I thought rather successful, short screenplay was an adaptation of 'At the Bay' - though at 30 pages, it's probably too long to get made. Sean and I also wrote a screen adaptation of 'Daughters of the Late Colonel', which I think needed some more work, but such a beautifully surreal and hilarious story would be great on screen if you could get it right.) I think it's kind of a pity that we often study her at school, when I'm not sure we're really ready for her.

There's also lots of New Zealand poetry I like. Some of my favs include the writers I've published: Vivienne Plumb, Anna Jackson, Jenny Powell-Chalmers, Scott Kendrick. Also Harry Ricketts, South by Chris Orsman. Also influential: Fleur Adcock, Mark Pirie, James K Baxter, Ursula Bethell, many more.

Now that I've started thinking about it, I'm sure there's lots more I'd add. But I'm really keen to know some of your favs - expand my horizons.